Enter our interloper from my previous post, The Hippie and the Capitalist. It’s a warm spring day, and our interloper is in the shade of a large tree, leaning against the trunk as he watches a young boy and a young girl playing a game of marbles in the dirt a short distance away.

Little Girl: (As she shoots her marble) “I heard my mommy talking about your daddy at supper last night. She says he isn’t paying his fair share to help other people.”
Little Boy: (Sits back on his haunches and scowls at the little girl) “Says who? My dad says if it weren’t for him, people like your mom wouldn’t have a job. He says that means he does more for society than the people he hires.”
Little Girl: (Now upset) “If my mommy didn’t work for your daddy, your daddy wouldn’t have a business. He needs her more than she needs him. She can work for anybody, you know.”
Little Boy: “Oh yeah? Well if it weren’t for people like my dad, who would your mom work for, huh? Answer that, miss smarty pants!”
Little Girl: “Mommy says men like your daddy are just greedy. They make people like my mommy work too hard and don’t pay them what they are worth. And then they don’t want to pay the government so other people can have food and medicine.”
Little Boy: “That’s not true! I’ve heard my dad telling my mom there isn’t enough money and he doesn’t know how he is going to pay his employees and still pay our own bills. People like your mom think my dad is made out of money. Well he aint!”

Little Girl: “Yeah? Well he owns his own business, doesn’t he?”
Little Boy: “Yes. And if your mom were so smart, she’d start her own business. See if that makes her rich like she thinks my dad is.”
Little Girl: “Well, well…well, I think people like your daddy should still do more to help other people. Who else is going to help the homeless?”
Little Boy: “And I think your mom should stop trying to give away my dad’s money.”
Little Girl: “But the government needs money to take care of us. My mommy says she doesn’t have enough because your daddy won’t pay his fair share.”
Little Boy: “And my dad is always complaining about the government taking too much money. He says the government takes so much now, he can’t afford to pay the people who work for him what they are worth.”
Little Girl: “Then the President should make your daddy pay. My mommy says that’s the only way everything will be done fairly is if the President makes sure your daddy pays his fair share.”
Interloper: (Smiling as He walks over to the children) “Children, don’t fight.” (Crouching down between the two of them) “It takes all of us working together to make it in this world work. The secret is to learn how to balance things, and to do that, we have to understand and appreciating the part each of us serves in society.”
Little Girl: (Shifting next to the little boy) “We’re not supposed to talk to strangers.”
Little Boy: (Putting his arm protectively in front of the little girl) “That’s right, Mr., we can’t talk to you.”
Interloper: (Smiling warmly) “Trust me, it will be OK. But to make you feel better, I will sit over here, on this side of the circle” (he sits as he jesters to the circle drawn in the dirt around the marbles).
Little Boy: (Hesitating) “Well, I suppose it will be OK – but only if you stay on that side of the circle!”
Interloper: (Looking down as he slowly picks up the marbles and puts them in their bag) “Do you know what most people don’t understand about society, not even most parents?”
Little Boy and Girl Together: “What?”
Interloper: (Placing the last marble in the bag and holding it out to them) “Here’s your bowling ball.”
Little Girl: (Giggling) “That’s not a bowling ball, silly.”
Little Boy: (Concerned) “Mr. I think we might ought to leave…”
Interloper: “Here, take your bowling ball with you.”
Little Boy: “Mr., you know that’s not a bowling ball, it’s just a bag of marbles.”
Interloper: (Smiling) “Exactly. And society is just a collection of people, but most grownups treat it like it is something else; like it is a person bigger and more important than anyone in it.”
Little Girl: (Making herself comfortable) “What do you mean, Mr.?”
Interloper: “Well, the first thing we need to understand about society is that it is just a group of people acting together for a purpose, but it is not that purpose.”
Little Boy: (Settling in) “Huh?”
Interloper: “Well, you can be a member of many different societies at the same time, with many different purposes. But those groups do not become what they do anymore than you become the group.”
Little Girl: “I don’t understand.”
Interloper: “OK, pretend Johnny is on the school baseball team.”
Little Boy: “Hey, how’d you know my name?”
Interloper: “Together, all the boys on the team make a society. They work together to play and win baseball games. They are also a part of your school, and all the students and teachers in the school form a society that works together to learn. Then your school is part of your town, and all the people of your town work together to make things work in town. And your town works to make things work in your County, and your County works to make things work in your State and your State works to make things work in the nation. But you never become the team, or the school or the town or County or State or the nation, but many adults forget this and they treat groups of people like they were a single person who is more important than each person in that group.”
Little Boy: (Thinking hard) “That’s why you called our bag of marbles a bowling ball, to show us that it doesn’t become something else just because you put a bunch of smaller things together.”
Interloper: (Nodding approvingly) “That’s right. You knew the bag of marbles was not a bowling ball, but many grownups forget this when they start trying to deal with things that are bigger than they can handle. To make it easy for them to think they can control it, they talk about it like all the people in society are one big person – or worse, like they are all parts of a machine.”
Little Girl: (Looking at the little boy) “Hey! That’s how the man on the news talks when he tells mommy about the economy. He makes it sound like it is a machine and the President can fix it by passing a law.”
Interloper: “Do you think you can make your bag of marbles into a bowling ball by passing a law?”
Little Boy and Girl Together: (Shaking their heads and giggling) “No.”
Interloper: (Dumping the bag of marbles into the center of the circle) “OK, so we know that society is just a group of people working together for a purpose. Now, what do you think the purpose of society should be?”
Little Girl: “To take care of people.”
Interloper: “Very good, but how do we do that without hurting other people at the same time?”
Little Girl: “By electing a President to pass good laws.”
Little Boy: “By making sure the laws we pass are fair.”
Interloper: (To the little girl) “That’s a good start,” (to the little boy) “but that’s a little better. Now what does fair mean?”
Little Boy: “I’m not sure.”
Interloper: “That is a wise answer. Never be afraid to admit you do not know something.” (Separating the marbles into piles by color) “Now let’s pretend the circle is society and the different piles of marbles are different groups of people in society. This big pile of clear marbles is all the workers who do daily jobs like Sally’s mommy.”
Little Girl: (To the boy) “He knows my name, too.”
Interloper: “And this smaller pile of red marbles are all the people who work as teachers, and firemen, and police officer and jobs that help keep society together. And this smaller pile of blue marbles are the people who run businesses and hire the people in the pile of clear marbles. Do you understand so far?”
Little Boy and Girl Together: (Looking intently at the marbles and nodding vigorously).
Interloper: “OK, let’s pretend that the people in the blue pile decide they want to keep all the money they make from running their businesses, so they make a deal with the people in the red pile to team up and push all the clear marbles outside of the circle. Do you think that is fair?”
Little Boy and Girl Together: (Still staring hard at the marbles) “Nooo.”
Interloper: “Well, what if the clear marbles team up with the red marbles and push the blue marbles outside the circle – would that be fair?”
Little Boy and Girl Together: “No.”
Interloper: “Very good, but why isn’t it fair?”
Little Girl: “Because some marbles are being pushed outside the circle. That means they are being pushed out of the group.”
Interloper: (Smiling proudly) “Very good, Sally. So a good society keeps all the marbles inside the circle? Does that sound fair?”
Little Boy and Girl Together: “Uh-huh.”
Interloper: (Adding an aggie to the center of the circle) “Now, what if I add this aggie and it starts to push all the marbles outside of the circle?”
Little Boy: “Well, that’s really not fair.”
Interloper: “Do you children understand what you just learned?”
Little Girl: “Ummm, I’m not sure.”
Little Boy: “That the best society, the fairest society makes laws that keep all the marbles inside the circle?”
Interloper: “Very good, Johnny. Now let’s understand it the way your parents would talk about it. In the first example where the blue marbles teamed up on the red marbles, together they were still fewer in number than the clear marbles, but they still pushed the clear marbles out of the circle. This is called fascism. It is where the producers team up with the government to tell people like Sally’s mom what to do.”
Little Girl: (To the little boy) “I’ve heard my mommy use that word before.”
Interloper: “Now, when the clear marbles teamed up with the red marbles, they pushed the blue marbles out. This is what happens when the workers team up with the government to tell people like Johnny’s dad what to do. Your parents call it socialism.”
Little Boy: “What about the aggie?”
Interloper: “Well, when one person tells everyone what to do, that is called tyranny.”
Little Girl: “So the fair way to do things is to keep all the marbles in the circle. How do you do that?”
Interloper: “It’s called a commonwealth. That is when society only passes laws that help everyone equally. If you pass a law that helps only red marbles, then the clear and the blue marbles suffer. Same way if you pass a law that helps only the clear marbles.”
Little Girl: “But there are more clear marbles than red and blue, so shouldn’t they get to say what society does? Isn’t that what mommy calls democracy?”
Little Boy: “Yes, but the same thing will happen then as when the clear and red marbles teamed up on the blue. Whenever any marbles are pushed out of the circle, then things aren’t fair.”
Interloper: “I see you two understand how it is supposed to work. All you have to do now is learn how to keep the balance by not pushing anyone outside the circle.”
Little Girl: “Why don’t you teach this to our parents?”
Interloper: (With sorrow and compassion on his face) “I taught it to their great grandparents, who taught it to their children, but by the time your parents grew up, they had turned their backs on what I taught them because they thought they knew better. Now, I am teaching you in hopes that you two will remember what your parents have forgotten.”